Alright, so, this is the result of an idea I threw out in the Original Hardware Mega Thread.

The focus of this "one box" challenge is imposing limitations--as I hear tell from the interwebz that is supposed to foster creativity. So the original proposal was the folks with hardware would use, more or less, a single piece of hardware to make a continuous EP length piece of live music. We dropped a lot of these requirements, so come back and listen if you were put off and don't worry software people, we will get you involved, hang with me.

There was some concerned voiced that using something like an Octatrack or MPC-- and later we decided computers were OK as they do in fact constitute a single box. -- might be cheating. And I said, hey, look, I came up with this mad scheme where I'm going to do this long, self indulgent dub techno exploration that will make people who also hate jazz murder a puppy for satan...but I digress...

I came up with this mad scheme and just thought it would be more fun if some of ya'll joined in. Lets keep it casual. Use your Octatrack, MPC or computer and just come up with your own set of fairly strict limitations. Someone smartly suggested using only Drumracks in Ableton to make a song. Sounds cool to me. I've got other ITB limitation ideas I can post if anyone needs them.

I think it would be cool if we maybe brought all the finished projects together, titled the lot and added to the pile of musical detritus scattered across the googlescape. It'd probably also be neat to get a little write up from everyone about their experience and what limitations they imposed.

Shit as far as I'm concerned this is something that can kind of just live in this thread if you want. Finish at your own pace and post here? Thoughts? Comments? Fuck off relic?

Make it a single track each so that you actually have a chance of someone completing this sometime this decade. :problemofficer:

No but seriously, if you guys can put something decent together then this could be IDMf049 as far as I'm concerned. It would be great to see the community take the initiative and come together for an LP of it's own making.

Don't be retarded.
The whole one box thing comes from the ITB/OTB debate, where the computer is "the box".
I think this whole thread has suffered from crossed wires from the get go.

If you want to do a contest based on using mainly one device, the easiest way to "prove" that would be just to video a small section of the track playing from the device and up it next to a link to the track.

If your one box is a computer then you should probably state one VST in the rules too because otherwise wtf?

I think allowing for DAWs kinda ruins the concept. The whole point of such a limitation to me would be to explore the boundries of a piece of gear. I would say 1 hardware box, no post fx/mastering/montage. Whole track has to be recorded straight from the device in one take.

For owners of an Octatrack, OP-1, MPC or similar it might not make a huge difference, since you can construct a track on them faily easily. But if you're just using a synth or drummachine I can see this challenge really good for training more classic song writing & perfoming skills and exploring the possibilties of your box.

Oh ffs! I spent the morning making a few patterns and variations on the octatrack for this thing and now I did something wrong and lost all but the original! Shit, while I see the potential, this thing (the octatrack that is!) is kinda kicking my ass a little.
On the plus side I figured out how to sample the guitar in it. I don't know why but it was super convoluted to get and with external clock it seemed to not want to play nice but got it eventually!
I think the easiest might be to set it up with the MPC into a thru track and use that as a metronome and use the count in on there!
Argh bit of a rant but man am I disappointed I lost those patterns, nothing I won't be able to get similar results too fairly quickly but still.

I was thinking it was maybe a finish at your own pace and share results here in the thread thing, but it seems to have involved into something else entirely. At this point whatever interested forum members can agree on seems best.

WTF? guys, this isn't going to fly unless the rules are set out more clearly..I mean, saying "in the box" is cool, but even that seems to have caused some confusion/debate.

Personally, I'm not sure what's what at the moment. I'm a PC "in the box" person, so I take from everything posted so far that I can use only one synth / vst, with no added FX plugins. So does that mean I take only one sample / preset and them try to be as creative as possible in order to make a track using that one sound?

If so, isn't this just another take on the already running IDMf Beat Battles?

Also..and I think this is an important point, if history is anything to go by..you're going to need to set some sort of deadline..if not, folks will just drift away, as life kicks in and takes up their time on other stuff.